Barack Obama Announces Gun Control Measures In Emotional Speech At The White House
"Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad."
After a seemingly endless succession of mass shootings in 2015, US President Barack Obama has defied a powerful gun lobby and uncooperative Congress to introduce executive actions designed to increase gun control.
The actions, which can be enacted without Congressional approval, will ensure more small-time firearm traders will have to register as licensed gun dealers, meaning they will have to perform background checks on any individual to whom they sell a weapon. Under current laws, small-time private operators who primarily do business at gun shows and fairs don’t have to run background checks — a massive loophole that sees guns make their way into the hands of the kind of people who want to actively avoid having a background check done on them.
It’s the boldest action Obama has taken yet on gun control, and one that’s sure to be met with political and legal opposition. In a speech at the White House, surrounded by the loved ones of victims of gun violence, Obama sought to meet some of that opposition head-on, giving a passionate and emotional speech that evoked the memories of the 20 first-grade children shot dead in 2014’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
“Second Amendment rights are important. But there are other rights that we care about as well, and we have to be able to balance them. Because our right to worship freely and safely: that right was denied to Christians in Charleston, South Carolina, and it was denied to Jews in Kansas City, and it was denied to Muslims in Chapel Hill, and Sikhs in Oak Creek. They had rights too,” Obama said.
“Our right to peaceful assembly: that right was robbed from moviegoers in Aurora and Lafayette. Our inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness: those rights were stripped from college kids in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara, from high schoolers in Columbine.
“And from first graders in Newtown. First graders.
“Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad. And by the way, it happens on the streets of Chicago every day.”
You can watch the whole thing below. It’s worth your time.